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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30117339">Nothing's Working; Please Stand By</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neurotoxia/pseuds/Neurotoxia'>Neurotoxia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Don Corneo - Freeform, Gen, Midgar (Compilation of FFVII), Minor Original Character(s), Public Transportation, Slice of Life, Wall Market (Compilation of FFVII)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:20:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,681</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30117339</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neurotoxia/pseuds/Neurotoxia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Reno experiences first hand how the conveniences of Midgar become one colossal inconvenience.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Worldbuilding Exchange 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nothing's Working; Please Stand By</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/raininshadows/gifts">raininshadows</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Corneo’s mansion, and Reno hesitates to call it that because it’s too gaudy even for his basic tastes, is a chore to be in. It always looks like someone abandoned a flea market all over it. He hates coming here, and not just because it’s an eyesore. You’ve got to be really goddamn sleazy to make Reno feel like he needs a shower.</p><p>Corneo’s wet blanket of an assistant, Kyle or Kim or whatever, is walking him out, hovering half a step behind him like Reno would steal Corneo’s kitsch if left to his own devices. Reno probably makes more than all of Corneo’s clown posse combined. He has no need, or even inclination, to steal a gold-painted porcelain dragon.</p><p>The intel was halfway decent at least. Reno only had to threaten the glib arsehole once before he coughed up some extra bits. Why Corneo still thinks he can wheedle extra concessions out of Shinra for his information continues to be a mystery. He has Wall Market all to himself, Shinra effectively pretending the district and whatever goes on in it doesn’t exist. Which is fine by Reno, he’s just not too jazzed when he has to go and get the info. But Corneo hasn’t been too forthcoming in delivering information lately, so he needed a reminder that there’s supposed to be some reciprocity.</p><p>They cross a small group of girls in the entranceway, none of them older than twenty and dolled up however well their money allows. Some of them clean up nice enough to be hostesses up on the plate, and yet here they are in Don Corneo’s gauche wonderland. If that’s what they want to stake their lives on (quite literally), who’s he to stop them? Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows the fate of those who don’t get picked by Corneo. And what happens to those who do. Largely, the population down here doesn’t give a shit. They’ve got their own problems to deal with, or they work for Corneo and depend on him. Some think if you’re stupid enough to go to Corneo, you deserve whatever you get. And more often than not, trying to catch Corneo’s interest comes with no worse fate than what you’re already dealing with outside.</p><p>Life in the slums is garbage, simple as that. Reno saw plenty of it himself before he clawed his way out of it.</p><p>Back outside, the heavy gate fallen shut in front of Maybe-Kyle’s dour face, Reno reaches for his PHS in his pocket and freezes.</p><p>
  <i>Motherfucker.</i>
</p><p>For a moment, he thinks someone in the house might have actually managed to lift it off of him, but when the pat to his breast pocket comes away with the same unnatural emptiness in lieu of where his card wallet should be, he releases a string of curses that’s colourful even by Wall Market’s low standards.</p><p>He’s never drinking coffee mid-flight again.</p><p>His phone and ID are sitting in the back of the helicopter, still snug in the pockets of the jacket he dumped coffee on on the way down from the plate. Reno keeps an extra shirt and jacket in the helicopter for changing – usually for when his clothes are too blood-stained, but they’ve come in handy for spilling accidents. Tseng would bite his head off if he ran around with mustard or coffee stains. He doesn’t care nearly as much if you’re dripping with blood.</p><p>All of this wouldn’t be too much of a disaster yet, if the goddamn helicopter weren’t gone. Rude got recalled just as they stepped out of it: Rufus needed someone to fly him and look threateningly over his shoulder while he manipulated someone. </p><p>Reno needs no help stepping on Corneo’s toes, so he thought he’d call Rude later for a lift back up. Or whine at Tseng for a lift if Rude weren’t back yet.</p><p>None of which he can do without a phone.</p><p>He considers turning back around and bully someone at Corneo’s to let him use their phone, but the problem is that Reno has no fucking clue what Rude’s number is. Or Tseng’s, for that matter. He doesn’t even know the office landline, and he can’t call the switchboard up at Shinra to put him through. You can’t just ask for the Turks.</p><p>Reno carefully rummages through all of his pockets to see what he has at his disposal, taking care not to look too agitated. Wall Market is quiet around this time of day, the district’s inhabitants creeping out of their houses and flats to go about their business before the Market becomes a hubbub come evening. Nevertheless, there’s always that one dumb douchecanoe looking for trouble, and Reno really has no patience to make sure he doesn’t kill anyone in Wall Market. Not great for business, a Shinra spook battering someone’s skull in in a district where Shinra officially has no jurisdiction.  </p><p>He needs to go back up, and the only reasonable option is the train.</p><p>Reno hates the train. He’ll use it – mostly in winter, when it gets too cold and rainy to take the bike, but he hates being squeezed in the cars like a sardine in a can. It beats trying to drive a car in Midgar, because even with the power of money and urban planning, the President won’t be able to build enough highways to solve the rush hour traffic jams around Shinra Tower.</p><p>At the station, the next obstacle is already prepared to give him a massive headache. Tickets. He needs a ticket. His company ID comes with a built-in all access, no-limits train ticket. Reno’s literally never had to buy one since joining Shinra. And, more importantly, his company ID is also Reno’s credit card.</p><p>The ID is pretty much a Shinra Army Knife when you’re a Turk. They have no official passports or IDs since they’re officially non-existent. The Turks are ghosts. When you join, you get purged from the planet – every papertrail that you might have ever had disappears. They have company IDs, but if anyone decided to look up one of their badge number in the employee database, they’d lead to a false record. Without an identity, you can’t just walk into a bank and open an account (and in keeping with the spirit of being ghosts, shouldn’t), so they draw their salary from funds that, with a lot of detours, are attached to Rufus Shinra. Rufus had a quiet (as in, without the knowledge of his father) <i>reorganisation of funds</i> that’s far beyond Reno’s understanding, but after that little Veld snafu, Reno prefers depending on Shinra junior over depending on Shinra senior.</p><p>Problem is, when you leave your plastic Shinra Army Knife behind, all you’re left with is three 100-gil-coins in your right pocket. They’re prototypes from Rufus – guy’s getting serious about having his old man out of the picture sooner rather than later. Reno was with Rufus when he'd bullied the appropriate folks at the mint to do a test run of his own gil redesign, and have them conveniently forget to send the paperwork over to the company. Or create any paperwork in the first place. Rude and Reno got a couple coins each, and Reno handed some off to Tseng, but the rest has lived in his pocket ever since. </p><p>He can’t leave them lying around in the Tower somewhere, since it’s probably a bad look to show off items that suggest you’re aware the vice-president is scheming against the president. Particularly if protecting the president is part of your duties. But that goes for the vice-president as well, and keeping it quiet is <em>technically</em> protecting him from harm.</p><p>Should he feed them to a ticket machine? Ideally not, but people in the slums have been swindling Shinra out of small change since the company started. In a random vending machine in the slums, they’ll get tossed in with the trick and fake coins, even though they’re real. If it’s coming from the mint it’s got to be considered real, right? If push came to shove, he could still come back down with a crew later and seize the machine. He’s a Turk, it’s Shinra property. He doesn’t need a reason.</p><p>Screw it, he thinks, and taps the screen, working his way through the frankly ridiculous menu just to get to purchasing a simple one-way ticket. There’s a tiny cartoon rendition of Spot the Dog sitting in a corner of the screen trying to be helpful, but it’s about as useful as the stupid paperclip mascot in the old word processing software they used to run up at the Tower.</p><p>210 gil just to get up to Sector Seven. The full connection all the way to Shinra Tower would run him almost 400. Fuck that. </p><p>Reno pays the smiling Spot bastard, scrutinising the machine as it processes the coins. It’s not lost on Reno that the cash-run machine looks a lot older and clunkier than the modern ones sitting next to it. The blue paint job is flaking off, and someone’s taken a knife to the screen to etch a penis into it. But the shiny new ones will only take contactless and card payments. None of which Reno can provide, so he keeps watching Spot thinking about accepting his coins, and sighs with relief when Spot finally thanks him for choosing Shinra and adds a reminder to take his change and ticket. Reno instead thanks Rufus Shinra and his grandiose secret projects.</p><p>The 90 gil of change aren’t much good for anything even in the slums, so Reno shoves them in his pocket and pointedly ignores the smell of someone frying and glazing mitarashi dango in his immediate vicinity. He could go for a couple skewers right now; it’s just about time for lunch. For people who have money.</p><p>Above him on the platform, the LED sign announces a six-minute delay for the next train.</p><p>“For Shiva’s sake,” Reno mutters under his breath.</p><p>While he waits for the train to finally arrive, Reno scans the newspaper front page in the display case to his right, wedged between an ad for Banora Apple Juice’s new product, the Apple Energy Jelly Pouch (<i>to give you the energy of a SOLDIER</i>), and a poster for a theatre play in Wall Market: some retelling of the story of the goddess of <i>LOVELESS</i>, and the only thing Reno will pay money for is to make people stop producing ever new versions and spin-offs of the damn thing. </p><p>The newspaper announces the opening of a new shopping centre in Sector Eight, dedicated to high end electronics for the entertainment industry and professionals. Which means that the construction noise might finally be over for Reno. Even though he lives a couple of blocks away from it, the noise carried like crazy for over a year. </p><p>Below the shopping centre, there’s a smaller article about Shinra starting development on efficient electric cars and faster airships ‘to improve the mobility of all the planet’s inhabitants and lead the public even further away from old, outdated fuels.’ Reno has seen a prototype for the cars, but he really doesn’t care much about them. He’d rather Shinra give him a shiny new helicopter.</p><p>The rest of the page is littered with smaller announcements: election results for the Sector Three council (an election as rigged as any other in Midgar), notes about new construction for the Shinra complex in Junon, warning about an increase of Hedgehog Pies in the Sector Five slums, ads for a snobby grocery store chain, and the weather proclaiming a mild average of 15°C for the next three days with moderate levels of mako exposure. It’s all very boring.</p><p>Finally, the gods see reason and the train arrives. And it’s not even too full – no need to murder a guy for a seat.</p><p>Reno deliberately chooses a seat in the last car. He doesn’t like it when people could come at him from both sides. The few other passengers in his vicinity are mostly reactor staff going up, since shift change is around the corner. They’re all decked out in their grey and blue cargo pants and heavy duty jackets with reflective strips, Shinra’s logo stitched on a pocket on their sleeves. One is already wearing his blue hard hat, some others have them dangling from their backpacks, and one other keeps the white supervisor’s hard hat in his lap for the ride. Reno tends to like the reactor workers, when he has a run-in with them. They’re not as fussy a bunch as the office drones in the tower. </p><p>Above their heads is an advertisement for the new chocobo racing season, due to start in two weeks. A green and a black chocobo are facing off in the ad strip’s centre, making the sport look way more interesting than it actually is, if you ask Reno.</p><p>Shinra Transport’s jingle, a cheerful vintage number, echoes through the cars, followed by an announcement of their finest lady robot voice: <i>“We will reach the I.D. checkpoint in six minutes. Shinra asks that passengers remain calm. The scanning process is automatic and not harmful. Your cooperation is appreciated.”</i></p><p>“Aw fuck,” Reno swears under his breath, reining himself in so he doesn’t draw the entire train’s attention.</p><p>He forgot about the I.D. scans. In his defence, it’s not like he usually has to think about them. </p><p>The scan will catch him. You might be able to pass with a really good fake I.D. but not without any at all. Once the system counts more people than I.D.s it triggers an alarm and the train will be quietly redirected to one of the service platforms on the way up with a contingent of infantry security already waiting to pull the train apart to get a hold of whoever tried to sneak up without identification. Usually followed by an arrest, and if you’re lucky they’ll just dump you back in the slums, with some roughing up free of charge if you get mouthy.</p><p>Reno pulled a guy from a train himself one time. The I.D. was flagged as false and associated with a terrorist sympathiser, so he got a welcome committee courtesy of the Turks and a VIP ride in an armoured van with an overnight stay in the Shinra basement level that officially doesn’t exist.</p><p>Too much to hope that Turks would show up for a missing I.D. alarm. The best Reno could hope for is that there’s an infantryman in the group who recognises him. Which is a gamble. If not, he can let himself get arrested, try to get them to call someone with authority in, and avoid getting dumped back into the slums. He wouldn’t even be interesting enough to take straight into custody at the tower. The Shinra logo on his weapon won’t help him look more interesting, anyone can engrave that shit on a baton. Reno <em>could</em> take out a group of infantry if he wanted, it’s not much of a challenge for him. But that’ll trigger an even bigger alarm, maybe even have them send a 3rd class depending on how much of a trigger-happy bastard is calling the shots at the time. And sure, the bigger the gun they send, the more likelihood that someone knows who Reno is. Which could make it a good plan, if Tseng wouldn’t absolutely murder him ten ways from Sunday for getting the cavalry called on him for a missing I.D.</p><p>Never say that Reno can’t think fast when it’s about avoiding a spike of Tseng’s blood pressure, and preserving a bit of his professional pride. Evading detection is part of the job.</p><p>The train computer! Usually in the second to last car on this train model, so Reno moves as fast as he can without attracting attention. Bless the unwritten law of Midgar that says you don’t make eye contact in Midgar’s public transport. People barely glance at him.</p><p>The computers are meant for use by the attending staff, and with the right permissions you can override the security scan. Technically meant for when train electronics are acting up, because the scan can cause minor electronic interference and that’s a thing to avoid when there’s already a hiccup. Train crashes are bad PR.</p><p>Another bonus you get as the vice-director of the Turks is access to almost anything. Reno’s key codes are good for everything from bathroom doors at the Tower to the bowels of the plates themselves. The trains have less security than the Turks’ office floor.</p><p>The screen in the wall asks for an I.D. but Reno knows the keyboard combination to switch to manual entry of identification. Takes longer, because he has to enter his security certificate number and two different strings of passcodes (and thank fuck that he bothered to learn those). The timestamp in the upper left corner tells him there’s only about ninety seconds left before the scan hits, and Reno wishes a plague on whoever designed the interface and thought the incoherent game of nesting dolls was a sensible choice for menus.</p><p>But he finds the option with thirty seconds to go, and confirms that he wants to disable the scan. The train will have to go through a checkup later in the depot, but they happen often enough that no one will care to think about who authorised the disabling on a train with no attending staff besides the conductor. Not that it would matter if they did. Reno <em>has</em> the authority to disable the scan after all.</p><p>He leans back against the wall next to the screen and heaves a sigh of relief. The plate is within his grasp. </p><p>Home sweet home.</p><p>The rest of the ride is no more eventful than Midgar’s trains usually are. One person downtrain is shouting into their phone because the cure to the reception cutting out is always shouting; one person randomly starts crying; and somewhere where Reno can’t see a person is eating something pungent. All of these go ignored by the powers of newspapers, phones, and stoicism.</p><p>Reno doesn’t bother sitting back down. He feels keyed up, and who knows if he might need the computer again. Shouldn’t, but a lot of things happened in the last hour that shouldn’t have. </p><p>Shuffling his feet, he notices he’s standing in gum.</p><p>Brilliant.</p>
<hr/><p>When Reno exits the train fifteen minutes later, he nearly gets run over by an old lady in a bright yellow oilcloth coat who’s tugging a shopping trolley and trying to get in before everyone has left the train.</p><p>“Hold your horses, yo,” Reno grumbles and is rewarded with a dirty look from the speeding lady, merrily dragging one wheel of her trolley across Reno’s foot.</p><p>Not that it hurts, since his boots are steel-toed, but it’s the principle of the thing.</p><p>Challenging grandmas to a duel is frowned upon, so Reno lets it go and instead directs his own dirty look towards the sky above him. It was fairly sunny when he got on the train, but now Midgar has decided to unleash its best-known feature once more: drizzle.</p><p>Midgar has a real knack for days upon days of a fine, misty drizzle that’s not enough to break out an umbrella but definitely enough to fuck up your hair. It’s no surprise Midgar has a solid market for hair products that cement your hair any way you please, weather be damned. Rude used to say that part of the reason he shaved his head was Midgar’s weather, and Reno still can’t tell if Rude was joking or not. Rude has the most deadpan delivery of jokes ever. Reno’s money is on Rude going bald prematurely, though.</p><p>He locates the closest map of Midgar Transit Service, staring at it in contemplation to work out a way on foot. If he had his phone, he could tell the Midgar City app to give him the fastest route.</p><p>Then again, if he had his phone, he wouldn’t need to use the map in the first place.</p><p>His leftover 90 gil won’t get him to Downtown Sector Seven, which would get him a lot closer to the Sector Zero Ring. Not that reaching Sector Zero means you’re at the Tower. That’s still plenty of ground to cover.</p><p>He remembers walking home from a bar in Downtown Eight one night. It seemed like a good idea at the time, like it always does when you’re pissed as a newt. Took about three hours, and looking at the map in front of him, Reno figures the distance between the bar and his place is about the same as the one between Gau Rise station and the Tower.</p><p>Nope.</p><p>Fuck all of that.</p><p>He’s not walking three hours in the rain. Sober.</p><p>Time for something more drastic.</p><p>Reno glances around, sizing up the travellers around him. The stations for lower city access are always busy, no matter what time of the day. Which is just what he needs for the execution for his plan.</p><p>He may not have done any pickpocketing in a while, but he’s far from rusty.</p><p>The guy two metres from him carelessly shoving his phone into the side pocket of his backpack catches Reno’s eye. He’s wearing a decent suit and the backpack looks new. Reno doesn’t like stealing from folks who can’t afford it. And putting a phone in a backpack is basically advertising it.</p><p>Reno starts moving when the guy does, sliding up right behind him and following down the stairs from the platform to the station proper.</p><p>Two sleights of hand later he has a PHS in his pocket, and no one is any wiser.</p><p>Reno turns right at a crossing where the guy turns left, and keeps going for a good five minutes, taking a random pattern across a few side streets before he stops under the sun-faded green awning of a shuttered greengrocer’s. </p><p>Hopefully, the guy is as careless with his passcode as with the storage of his phone.</p><p>
  <i>Insert Passcode:</i>
</p><p>Fingers crossed.</p><p>
  <i>Insert Passcode: 12345</i>
</p><p>Hello, sweet sweet civilisation.</p><p>On a normal day, Reno would have thoughts about a guy that has the picture of a nude model as their PHS background, but he’s tired of just about everything and just enters one of the few phone numbers he actually remembers. Dial 115 in Midgar and you get to the Shinra Operator.</p><p>“Welcome to Shinra Electric Company, how can I assist you?”</p><p>“Reeve Tuesti’s office,” Reno says.</p><p>“Please hold.”</p><p>Reno has never been happier to hear the Shinra hold jingle. Shinra employs their own team of composers, an uppity bunch that thinks of themselves as the <em>creators of Midgar’s auditory identity</em> – whatever the fuck that means. Reno’s had to sit through a couple presentations when bodyguarding the President while he was being presented with the newest jingle for the Shinra Shuttle Line or the music for the visitor elevators in the Tower. It’s all fucking buzzwords, but the President was into it. Anything that telegraphs ‘Shinra’ to the millions. Reno himself knows all the tiny pieces of music all over Midgar by rote, and he never realised it until he started to think about it.</p><p>“Reeve Tuesti’s office, this is Jen.”</p><p>“Thank Odin,” Reno sighs. “Jen, it’s Reno.”</p><p>Reeve’s secretary Jen has the distinction of being one of Shinra’s first fifty employees, and has worked in offices all over the Tower. She’s older now, and motherly down to her bones. Jen makes it a point to know the names and faces of employees that tend to go unnoticed. Or that should go unnoticed, like the Turks.</p><p>“Reno,” she exclaims, tone shifting from business to casual. “How nice to hear from you. You haven’t been up here in ages!”</p><p>Like Reno just stops by for casual visits to Reeve’s office. Reeve may be just about the only sane person on the board of executives, but Reno sees enough of executives to not seek them out when he doesn’t have to.</p><p>“Jen, I need your help.”</p><p>“What can I do for you?” </p><p>Reno can practically hear her sitting ready with a pen and a notepad, pulled from the depths of one of her countless cable-knit cardigans.</p><p>“I need you to get me Rude or Tseng on the line,” he explains. “I’m kinda stranded in Sector Seven and there’s a thing with my PHS and I.D.”</p><p>He’s definitely not telling her the vice-director of the Turks left his entire identity on a helicopter. As an executive assistant, Jen knows how to call the Turks office. Reno wants to slap himself for not thinking of her earlier.</p><p>“Oh no,” she says, and Reno is almost touched by her genuine dismay at his situation. “I’ll make some calls. Should they call you on this number?”</p><p>“Yes, please,” Reno says. “You’re a lifesaver.”</p><p>“Hang tight,” she says and disconnects.</p><p>The relief that Reno feels, he nearly wants to cry with it.</p>
<hr/><p>One frankly humiliating phone call with Rude later (the bastard had the audacity to <em>laugh</em>), Reno erases the phone’s contents, so no one knows it’s been used. Leave no trace. He can’t help it, it’s a habit.</p><p>Rude turns up twenty-five minutes later with a car and a shit-eating grin.</p><p>“Not,” Reno says as he climbs into the passenger seat, “a word.”</p><p>Rude, still grinning, pulls a plastic bag from behind the passenger seat and holds it out to Reno, who snatches it from Rude’s grip with a withering glare.</p><p>It’s his stained clothing, and Reno digs for his PHS and card wallet, raising them into the air with a triumphant sound.</p><p>“You’re a dumbass,” Rude snorts and takes the car back to one of the main roads.</p><p>“Next time I leave you stranded in the slums without your phone and I.D., see how you like it,” Reno grouses and takes one of the two coffee cups sitting in the cupholders.</p><p>At least Rude knows not to turn up without piping hot coffee.</p><p>“You can’t do fucking anything without a phone or a credit card,” Reno rambles on. “You can barely buy a train ticket. Public phones? You need a card. Forgot your I.D.? If you don’t know how to disable the scan, you have a bunch of infantry on your ass.”</p><p>“I got a solution for you,” Rude says and overtakes a minivan to get to one of the main highways, “don’t forget them.”</p><p>“Wow, do you charge for that kinda wisdom?”</p><p>“This one’s free,” Rude deadpans and pulls his own coffee from the cupholder without taking his eyes off the road.</p><p>“It’s shitty design is what it is.”</p><p>“Take it up with Reeve,” Rude says. “But you might just hear the shitty design is intentional.”</p><p>Reno mutters some choice words against the lid of his coffee cup, but doesn’t argue. Of course this shit is intentional. Great way to keep slum dwellers that don’t work for you out of your city. The slums run on cash and getting an I.D. approved for entry costs a <i>service fee</i> if you don’t work for Shinra or some other business in Midgar. A bunch of folks can’t spare that kind of cash just for joy rides up to the plate. </p><p>“Still,” Reno says because he has to have the last word.</p><p>“You really wanna argue urban planning with Reeve?” Rude snorts.</p><p>Reno thinks about it for a minute, imagining an hour-long presentation with graphs and charts (because Reeve <em>loves</em> graphs and charts) and about a million tangents on the details of transport lines, cost-effectiveness and security, and Reno thinks he might fall asleep right then and there.</p><p>“Fuck no,” he says. Emphatically.</p><p>The only thing he’s going up there for is to bring Jen a gift basket for saving his arse. Tomorrow, after he has drunk himself into a minor stupor.</p><p>Which he’ll do with cheap booze in his own four walls. After this little nightmare ordeal, he’s not setting another foot outside before he has to.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title taken from Julien-K's "Technical Difficulties."</p></blockquote></div></div>
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